Many of the founders themselves owned enslaved workers, and though they acknowledged that slavery was morally wrong, they effectively pushed the question of how to eradicate it to future generations of Americans. Thomas Jefferson , who left a particularly complex legacy regarding slavery, signed a law banning the importation of enslaved people from Africa in Still, the institution became ever more entrenched in American society and economy—particularly in the South.
By , when the Civil War broke out, more than 4 million people nearly all of them of African descent were enslaved in 15 southern and border states.
Presidents Owned Slaves? Though Abraham Lincoln abhorred slavery as a moral evil, he also wavered over the course of his career and as president on how to deal with the peculiar institution. But by , he had become convinced that emancipating enslaved people in the South would help the Union crush the Confederate rebellion and win the Civil War.
But the Emancipation Proclamation it itself did not end slavery in the United States, as it only applied to the 11 Confederate states then at war against the Union, and only to the portion of those states not already under Union control. To make emancipation permanent would take a constitutional amendment abolishing the institution of slavery itself.
In April , the U. Senate passed a proposed amendment banning slavery with the necessary two-thirds majority. But the amendment faltered in the House of Representatives , as more and more Democrats refused to support it especially during an election year. When Congress reconvened in December , the emboldened Republicans put a vote on the proposed amendment at the top of their agenda.
More than any previous point in his presidency, Lincoln threw himself in the legislative process, inviting individual representatives to his office to discuss the amendment and putting pressure on border-state Unionists who had previously opposed it to change their position.
Last-minute drama ensued when rumors started flying that Confederate peace commissioners were en route to Washington or already there , putting the future of the amendment in serious doubt.
But Lincoln assured Congressman James Ashley, who had introduced the bill into the House, that no peace commissioners were in the city, and the vote went ahead. As it turned out, there were in fact Confederate representatives on their way to Union headquarters in Virginia. On February 3, at the Hampton Roads Conference , Lincoln met with them aboard a steamboat called the River Queen, but the meeting ended quickly, after he refused to grant any concessions.
On January 31, , the House of Representatives passed the proposed amendment with a vote of , just over the required two-thirds majority. The following day, Lincoln approved a joint resolution of Congress submitting it to the state legislatures for ratification. But he would not see final ratification: Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, , and the necessary number of states did not ratify the 13th Amendment until December 6.
Skip to main content. On This Day 13th Amendment to the U. Constitution is Passed. Testing the credit line. The amendment states:. Related Posts Read Post. Read Post. Privacy Terms of Use Back to Top. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. A high-resolution scan is available here. Questions for Discussion Read the document and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the following questions.
Research which state was the first to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment only one day after it was formally proposed. Explain the significance of this action. Carefully examine the images and the format of the Iowa document. In what ways does the document indicate evident pride by the members of the Iowa general assembly in their decision to support the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment?
How can you explain the decision by the Iowa legislature to still ratify the Thirteenth Amendment when it had already been adopted by the required three-fourths of the states?
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